The Marauders
by hermionefan94
Summary: This will be a collection of oneshots about the lives of James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter that may or may not be in chronological order. It will include the good, the bad, and the angsty because for someone who had a really wonderful childhood, I am weirdly fond of writing angst. I'll make it T for now, cuz IDK what I'm gonna put in and I want to be on the safe side.


**A/N: 'Bout time I wrote a Harry Potter fanfic, yeah?**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, JK does. If you don't know this, you have either been living under a rock or are dumber than Gilderoy Lockhart**

Cool (adj.) - having a low temperature, cold in demeanor, interesting, popular, the Marauders

So, what makes a person cool? The French call it je ne sais quoi – I don't know what, which Remus Lupin reckoned was as good a term as any because who really knew? There were the obvious answers like looks and family and money, but the truth wasn't so simple. Yeah, those things mattered, but Judas McKinnon was more attractive than James and William Fairchild had far more money than Remus and it was common knowledge that Sirius was hated by his aristocratic family, and yet- _they _were cool. And maybe it was fair and maybe it wasn't, but in the end it didn't really matter because that's how it was.

If someone showed up one day and invented an algorithm for popularity, they'd be rich because it's not like being cool is something you can practice. There was an invisible circle at Hogwarts –Heck, muggle schools too! - and you were either outside or inside and there wasn't anything you could do to change it because cool is one of those weird things where the harder you try at it, the further you are from your goal. And Remus would know; he'd spent the first eleven years of his life outside the circle. He supposed he was lucky, because he wasn't _un_popular- just invisible; like if he said hi to someone, they'd be all "Oh hi, Remus" like they didn't even realize he was there until he said something, and then they would go right back to staring through him like he didn't exist. And it hurt not to exist –maybe not the same as if people had been mean to him- but this weird sort of dull ache like when you're really hungry and you know eating will make you feel better, but you hold back because for right now you're pretty sure you'd puke if you tried. It was like that for eleven years, and it wasn't like he'd done anything to deserve it or not and it's not like it mattered because there was nothing he could do to change it anyways, and since when was popularity more important than being the smart, kind, thoughtful person his parents were always telling him he was?

So it wasn't like Remus didn't know what he was talking about because he'd been there and he'd paid his dues, and if he was now at the center of the inner circle, he could link it to one thing: James Potter, Sorting Ceremony, first year.

The Unbecoming of Remus Lupin's invisibility happened a little like this…

He had just been sorted into Gryffindor and was sitting at the table when a boy with untidy black hair sat down next to him and said "hi", just hi, but it was a hi that changed lives; not "Oh hi I didn't see you there" hi, or "I don't give a shit but my mum wants me to be polite" hi, and for the first time in his life, Remus smiled for real and said "Hi, I'm Remus," and the boy smiled back and said "I'm James and this is my best mate, Sirius." And just like that, Remus was a marauder and people looked at him like he mattered. It was _that easy_, and even though he spent the whole evening in a happy little golden cloud, Remus knew that his newfound coolness had nothing to do with his own personal merits and everything to do with James Potter.

James had this way of making everything sound hilarious, even if it was horrible, and for that moment, you could pretend that everything was okay, like that time Professor Morgenstern had taken ten points from Alice for being a 'mudblood' and she was crying and James told her that Morgenstern couldn't tell a chimaera from a chipmunk and did an impersonation so accurate that Alice puked all over the great hall. Normally, making a girl throw up would make them hate you forever, but they actually ended up going out for six months, and it's not like James did anything special to make it up to her- it was just how he was. James had this sort of glow that made everyone want to be around him. Even though he was nice and rich and talented, being around him never made you feel like you were inferior. There was this coolness that radiated off of him and made everyone else feel like they too were worth something, and because James had chosen Remus, Sirius and Peter to be his best friend, they seemed to have picked up that same effect.

That could be the only explanation for Remus's sudden acquisition of cool, because he and the other marauders weren't perfect. They didn't walk on air or breathe moonbeams – Sirius spent his first day crying like a little Slytherin git and trying to get McGonagall to change his sorting decision; James had been turned down by Lily too many times to count, and Peter couldn't stay away from a plate of cookies if it said "poison: do not eat." But maybe it didn't matter, because who's perfect anyway? And if Remus and his best mates could improve the lives of everyone but Snivellus just by being around them, then it wasn't like they weren't using their powers for good. Yes, as long as they all lived and stayed loyal, Remus knew that he would be happy, and really, when you were happy, cool was optional.


End file.
